Not As We Planned

Imagine receiving a letter and discovering your husband has a 16-year-old son you knew absolutely nothing about. One listener had spent years believing his version of how a previous relationship ended, only for a child-support letter to reveal the truth. Now she’s trying to process the fact that her husband kept an entire child secret from her, while working out how they eventually tell their own 10 and 8-year-old children that they have an older brother. And the biggest question is: after a lie this big, how do you ever trust someone again?

We also hear from a gay listener who’s been secretly sleeping with his married straight male friend for the last year. What started as one drunken night has turned into monthly meet-ups with pre-booked hotel rooms, all while he’s friends with the man’s wife. He’s now developed feelings and wants to know whether his friend could actually want something more. Oh, and then he casually reveals he’s had sexual encounters with seven of his 18 straight male friends.
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One Bestie has a confession she never thought she’d be making: she’s the other woman. What started with a work colleague who has a long-term partner and two children has turned into a year-long affair, and now they’ve both admitted they have feelings for each other. She knows what they’re doing is wrong and desperately wants to end it, but there’s one major problem: she still has to see him at work. So how do you walk away from someone you’ve fallen for when you can’t completely remove them from your life?

Then, for the first time, we hear the other side from a male listener who fell deeply in love during an affair with an engaged woman. He spent almost two years waiting for her to leave her relationship, planned to move his life closer to her and believed they’d eventually be together. When she finally became single, he thought their chance had arrived… until she went on holiday, told him she needed to be alone and then revealed she’d met somebody else.
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Carly is back with a new nose! After years of feeling insecure about it, she finally flew to Turkey alone for the nose job she’d wanted for years. She opens up about why she decided to do it, the panic that hit before surgery, the mental battle during recovery and what it was really like seeing her new face for the first time. We also get very honest about the financial reality of becoming a single parent, the pressure of trying to keep up a lifestyle that was originally built on two incomes, and why single mums can so often feel forgotten.

Plus, one Bestie shares the story of spending 15 years believing her husband simply wasn’t that interested in sex... until women’s underwear, Viagra, a gimp mask, a chastity belt, Telegram and a trip to a sexual massage parlour eventually revealed a secret life she knew nothing about... and just weeks before they were due to start IVF, one final discovery ended their marriage for good.
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Three weeks after giving birth, one Bestie woke in the middle of the night panicking that she’d missed an alarm to feed her newborn. She couldn’t find her own phone, so she picked up her husband’s to check the time… and messages from another woman appeared on the screen. She was still bleeding, wearing a postpartum nappy and caring for their two tiny children when she discovered her husband had been having an affair with a woman they both worked with, and it had been going on for months.

This week we also hear from a woman whose boyfriend kissed someone on a night out, came home and abruptly ended their relationship, only to then ask if he could move back into their flat while they sell it. We tackle whether a four-hour long-distance relationship can realistically work when both people have children and lives they can’t relocate, and hear from a cancer survivor trying to date again after her husband’s betrayal left her terrified of letting another man in. Plus, Carly has another dating update, we give one Bestie’s Bumble profile a brutally honest makeover, and hear a confession that might genuinely make you delete Instagram and leave the country.
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Carly thought she’d finally met someone who ticked all the boxes: great chemistry, great dates, hours spent talking on the phone and seemingly all the right things to say. Then she discovered he was sleeping with multiple women. But this week, the story takes an even stranger turn when she finds him back on Tinder… using a completely different name. Now she’s questioning whether she ever really knew who she was dating in the first place.

We also hear from a woman whose affair with her married boss spiralled into years of broken promises, pregnancy, heartbreak and her private life being exposed at work; a listener who discovered her ex’s new girlfriend through a Daily Mail article; and a wife questioning the man she married after years of secrets and betrayal. Plus, we talk dating apps, trusting your gut, finding love after divorce and whether you can ever truly know the person you marry.

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